ABSTRACT
Federation 1884 Founding of Fabian Society 1889 Founding of Second International in
Paris 1890 German Anti-Socialist law lapses 1891 Erfurt programme adopted by German
SPD 1892 Founding of Partito Socialist Italiano 1893 Founding of British Independent
Labour party 1898 Founding of Russian Social-
Democratic party 1899 Revisionist debate at Hanover Con-
gress of German SPD 1900 Founding of British Labour Represen-
tation Committee 1903 Brussels/London Conference of Rus-
sian Social Democratic party 1904 Revisionism rejected at Amsterdam
Congress of the Second International 1905 French Socialist parties unite
Outbreak of rising in Russia 1907 Anarchist inspired strike in Barcelona 1909-12 Serious industrial disputes in Britain
and France 1912 Emergency Congress at Basle of Sec-
ond International to meet threat of war 1914 Outbreak of First World War; French
and German Socialist parties support
their governments’ war expenditure plans
Between 1871 and 1914 a powerful challenge emerged to the prevailing distribution of wealth and power in most of western Europe. Ironically, perhaps, it was in the much less developed countries of eastern Europe, notably Russia, that this challenge was to meet with success. But the revolutionary creed that sustained the communist revolution was written by people inspired by the western example of the French Revolution and who had themselves witnessed the impact of the industrial revolution above all in Britain. Such was the impact of Marxism that not only did it dominate the thinking of socialist parties in all parts of Europe but also with the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia it was to become a world-wide ideology, and the inspiration behind antiimperialist movements in China, South East Asia, parts of Latin America and Africa. Ironically, just as the last quarter of the nineteenth century marked the point at which Europe’s domination of the globe reached its zenith, so it was European thinkers in the first decade of the twentieth century such as J.A. Hobson and Lenin who provided the strongest case against imperialism. From the standpoint of the twenty-first century Marx’s relevance may not seem so apparent as it was during the height of the Cold War. Few are likely to repeat Khrushchev’s boast that ‘History is on our side’. But the problem of poverty in the midst of wealth, which Marx addressed, is still with us, and the hold which his ideas had both on individuals and on political movements for much of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries means that any study of socialism and working class organisations must begin with Marx.
